In a growing economy, are you getting your share of the pie?

Business is booming across Australia and New Zealand, with year on year growth recorded. If your business isn’t, then somebody’s taking your slice of the pie.

In Australia, mining was traditionally the largest source of above-average growth, but new industries are taking up the mantle.

Industries such as healthcare (12.8 percent), construction (7.6 percent), and transport, postal and warehousing (5.1 percent) are now in growth mode.

Meanwhile in New Zealand, the 10-year growth rate shows a buoyant economy.

Mining is still strong with 12.1 percent growth, with the health industry (8.1 percent), education (6.5 percent) and service industry (6 percent) leading the charge.

High tech manufacturing, ICT and tourism are also driving gains.

These industries represent golden opportunities, so why isn’t your business along for the ride?

Is your business making the most of a golden opportunity?

Growth industries reflect increased consumer demand and often have pressures on the supply side.

With such wide-spread growth across multiple sectors comes great business opportunities for Australasian businesses.

While in growth mode, the size of the potential market pie continues to grow.

How much of that new business have you won? You should expect to see at least similar growth in your own sales numbers.

If you’re not seeing a relative uplift in sales numbers, you’re not maintaining your relative market share.

The question then is: have you adapted your business to reap the rewards of a growing economy?

Consider the current market.

Are there new competitors or has an old competitor introduced a new offering that is giving them competitive advantage?

In any case, the solution to getting your slice of the pie back begins by examining your own business.

Time to rethink strategy?

A growing market is the perfect place to leverage customer demand and build on your offering.

Here are four ways to increase market share.

1. Innovate – a great way to increase market share is by spotting trends in the market early on. If you can execute faster than your competitors, you’ll gain real traction.
2. Engage with your customers – talk to them to find out how you could do better, or what new problems you could readily solve. Perhaps your post-sales service needs improving, or maybe your marketing or branding needs to be revised.
3. Meet your customers’ needs – is your product or service truly what they want? What job are they trying to do and are you effectively supporting them to do it?
4. Become more efficient and effective – that will free up time to focus on growing your business. That might mean working more flexibly, or implementing cloud-based computing so your team can work from anywhere.

It’s a great time to be in business in Australasia – take a close look at your numbers to make sure you are taking a decent slice of the pie.